Brent crude traded up to close at $104.64/barrel, positive for oil producers

Brent crude prices closed at $104.64/barrel on May 17th, up from $103.91/barrel on May 10th, resulting in a slight positive for oil producers last week.

Prices had moved largely downward since mid-February when they touched ~$119/barrel, reaching lows of ~$98/barrel in mid-April. Over the past several weeks, Brent crude has traded slightly up or sideways to recover some of its losses.

Brent crude is viewed as the benchmark crude for international oil prices. Therefore, movements in Brent oil prices are a major driver in the valuation of international oil producers. Higher oil prices also incentivizes producers to spend more money on drilling, which results in increased revenues for oilfield service companies (that is, companies which provide services such as drilling, fracking, and well servicing). Consequently, Brent crude prices are an important indicator to watch for those owning international energy stocks.

Last week, Brent crude prices finished up slightly, closing at $104.64/barrel compared to $103.91/barrel the Friday before. Since mid-February, when Brent touched nearly $119/barrel, prices fell dramatically to touch below $98/barrel in mid-April. In the past four weeks, Brent crude has traded slightly up or sideways to recover some of its losses and now trades around $105/barrel.

Note that Brent crude does not properly reflect the price that producers within the U.S. receive. For domestic producers, WTI is a more appropriate benchmark (read about last week’s movement in WTI prices here), mainly due to a recent surge in domestic crude production which has struggled to find sufficient transportation and outlets to bring WTI prices in line with Brent prices. For more on the price difference between the two, see WTI-Brent spread widened slightly, finishes at $8.35 per barrel. Also, Brent represents a certain grade of crude, and differences in the qualities of oil can affect the price that producers receive. Nevertheless, most market participants view Brent as the international oil benchmark, and price movements in Brent affect international energy stocks, such as Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC).

The top graph shows historical Brent crude oil prices. For most of this past year, Brent crude had been range-bound between ~$110/barrel to ~$120/barrel. However, oil broke the bottom of this range in early April given concerns over worse expectations of global economic growth and a consequently bearish outlook on oil demand.

As previously mentioned, higher crude prices generally have a positive effect on stocks in the energy sector. The below graph shows Brent crude oil price movements compared to XLE and XOM on a percentage change basis from January 2007 onward. One can see that crude oil, the XLE ETF, and XOM have largely moved in the same direction over the past several years.

As demonstrated in the graph above, crude oil prices are a major driver in the valuation of many energy investments. Oil prices affect the revenues of oil producers, and consequently affect the amount of money oil producers are incentivized to spend on oilfield services. Therefore, the slightly upward movement in prices this past week was a small short-term positive for the sector, though the longer bear market for Brent crude oil since early February has been a medium-term negative. Investors with energy holdings in names with international exposure, such as XOM, CVX, COP, and APC as well as the XLE (Energy Select Sector SPDR) ETF, may find it prudent to track the movements of benchmarks such as Brent crude.